The difference between broiler and cockerel

Both broilers and cockerels are poultry birds and are grown to be consumed as meat. But what differentiate them?

Broilers grow in 8-10 weeks while cockerel grows in six months

Broilers use formulated feed to grow from day old to table size while The advantage of cockerels over broilers is you can feed them with the desired poultry feed for 4-6 weeks and continue feeding with the normal food you’re feeding the local bird.

Broilers disease resistant is minimal compared to cockerel.

Factors that may affect your cockerel farming business

Poor cockerel breed will result in poor yield

It’s difficult not to have 5% mortality

It’s also difficult not to have one or two that will not grow the way you want.

How to start cockerel farming business

Acquire the knowledge

Never underestimate the knowledge of starting any business. With cockerel farming business, you’ll need to know about a lot of things like:

How to prepare the house

Vaccination schedule

Where to buy the day old

How to reduce infection risks

How to feed the chick

It helps because knowing certain things will save you money and time from calling a specialize always.

Decide on the week you intend to buy the chicks.

There are two ways you can get your chick

Day old

After the brooding period

When you get them during the day old period, you will have to do the brooding yourself for two weeks. The brooding period is the most important period.

When not done properly the mortality rate will be high and very difficult to maintain the rate at 5%.

If you’re going in for the day old, you’ll need to keep the room above 30o to achieve that, you’ll need use 200-watt bulbs lowered to about one foot to the ground and an artificial fireplace.

Keep the doors and windows airtight to prevent it from reducing the temperature.

When you bring the day old and put them in the house when you see them still clustering together, just know that the temperature is still low you’ll need to increase the heat by adding more bulbs or the fireplace.

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If you’re going for the cockerel after brooding, you’ll need not to go to that extent. All you need to do is to pay for someone to do it for you.

The advantage of the second option is, you get the number you ordered for. In other words, you get the exact number you paid for.

Write a business plan

These will include the detail of the business starting with the required startup funds, future expansion, the percentage you’re willing to give to investors, profit and loss statement, your organizational structure and operating expense.

With this business plan, you’ll have focus and know what to do and when to do it.

Find a suitable business location

Your location should be easily accessible to both young and old, cars, motorbike and bicycles. It should be an environment where you have the minimum of reptiles and lots of trees. These will help them when growing especially from week 4-6.

Create your poultry house

You’ll need to create two type of house for your birds. The brooding place and the growing place which they’ll need approximately four weeks.

Acquire the required poultry equipment

You’ll need the following equipment in your cockerel farming equipment. Am going to be using 100 cockerels as my standard to explain the quantity of this equipment required under each option.

Feeders (both small and big)- 4 small and 6 big feeders

Drinkers (both small and big)-3 small and 5 big drinkers

Buy the cockerel

Now this is the most important part because, when you buy poor breed, you’ll end up getting up growth variations and the growth will be poor. Many have bought day old from reputable companies and yet the end result was not what they wished.

What many do is they get cartons from the reputable companies, buy the chicks elsewhere and put them in it just to confuse many people.

My tips for buying your chick

Better still buy them after brooding because it will give you an idea of their growth after two weeks

Always ask people who are in the business to help you

Don’t buy from who you don’t know

Use formulated feed to feed them for 4-6 weeks

When started growing the chicks, you’ll need to use formulated. You’ll need the feed for 4-6 weeks depending on the time you started.

If it’s from day old, you’ll need 4 weeks and if you bought them after brooding, then you can feed them from the third to the sixth week.

After those weeks, you can release on their own in the environment and continue feeding them just like local chicken for the remaining weeks.

Sell your cockerel

After six months, you can begin to sell your table size cockerels. You can decide to sell them as frozen chicken or as life chicken.

Tips to be successful in cockerel farming business

Get a good cockerel breed

Make sure the environment is not contaminated with feces from rodents or rat

Don’t mix them with local chicken or pigeons to reduce the risk of disease spread

If you have more than one set of cockerels, always start feeding or giving water to the smallest before going to the biggest. This is because you don’t get the disease from the biggest ones who are resistant to it and give it to the smaller ones.

Always seek the services of a specialize to help you.

What else did I leave out in starting a cockerel farming business? Feel free to add by making your contributions in the comment section below.

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17 thoughts to “How to start cockerel farming business”

Hi, My Friend And I Have Been Working On Our Cockrels For About 12 Days Now Cos We Have Discovered A Way Of Growing Our Cockrels To Table Size Within 75 Days! We Believe They Will Turn Out To Be Tastier, Bigger And Healthier. See You Soon. Richards